The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : No stopping Balaji

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Friday, May 27, 2005

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Sport - Tennis

No stopping Balaji

Special Correspondent

BANGALORE: There was no stopping Sriram Balaji of Tamil Nadu as he bagged yet another title, winning the boys' under-16 singles crown in the Wearhouse-AITA Super Series junior tennis championshuip which concluded at Century Club courts here on Thursday.

Balaji rallied superbly to beat the Bangalore lad, Pretam Roy Mores 3-6, 6-1, 6-1.

In an engrossing girls' under-16 singles final, V. Poojashree of Karnataka tamed a big-hitting teammate, B. Akshata Raj at 6-3, 6-4. Poojashree also won the under-16 girls' doubles title, partnering Dipti Srivastava.

Trust Baljai, to play his best when chips are down. The Chennai youngster, who had struggled with his backhand at the outset, dropped the first set conceding two breaks in the first and third games.

Though he did manage to crack his rival in the fourth game, Preetam Roy Mores, still up a break, hung on to his lead and took the set.

It was from the second set that Balaji began finding his tough, especially with his strong forehand. Stepping up the pace, he hit some big winners and seized advantage against a shaky Preetam, who began spraying his shots all around the place. A confident Balaji raced to victory, with his rival, mired in unforced errors, threw in the towel.

Has the potential

Pooajshree has the potential to make it big in women's tennis in a few years time. The fomer National under-14 No. 1, has the build and height for it. A successful outing in Australia recently has given her lot of confidence and that showed in in the final. Akshsta struck some hard returns, but lacked the attitude.

Poojashree kept her focus and withstood her rival's onslaught to take the first set with a break in the eighth game. In the second set, Akshata , down 1-3, came up with good returns in the sixth cut the margin at 2-4. But the Bangalore girl, failed to carry n the momentum against the steady stroking Poajshree and spate of doublefaults and unforced errors (11 in just two games) also compounded her problems.

Poojashree broke again in the ninth game and held serve in the tenth to take the title.

Sudhanwa Sitaram of Tamil Nadu and T. Rashmi bagged the boys' under-14 singles and girls under-14 singles titles respectively.

The results (all finals):

Boys: Under-16 singles: Sriram Balaji (TN) bt Preetam Roy Mores (Kar) 3-6, 6-1, 6-1. Doubles: Vijayant Malik & Shivang bt P. Gangadhar & V.Vignesh 5-7, 6-1, 6-3.

Under-14 singles: Sudhanwa Sitaram (TN) bt Ronak Manuja (Mah ) 6-1, 6-2. Doubles: Sameer Paranjpe & Sudhanwa Sitaram bt Sumeet & Nachiket 6-2, 6-0.

Girls: Under-14 singles: T. Rashmi (Mah) bt Aishwarya Srivastav (Mah) 6-3, 2-6, 6-3. Doubles: Aishwarya Srivastav & Gopika Kapoor bt Likitha Devaraj & Sonia Dayal 6-4, 6-3.

Under-16 singles: V. Poojashree (Kar) bt Akshata B. Raj (Kar) 6-3, 6-4. Doubles: V. Poojashree & Dipti Srivastav bt Gayathri Krishnan & Supriya Mallya 6-1, 6-3.

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